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ONE in ten people have been physically attacked by a drunk woman, according to new statistics that link the growing trend for binge drinking to increasing violence on the streets. The poll of more than 1,000 people also revealed that more than 40 per cent of Britons have witnessed a woman who appears drunk attack someone else. Experts blame the rise on increased availability of alcohol, which can lead individuals to become more aggressive. People in Scotland today drink twice as much as during the 1950s. Among twenty-something women, 60 per cent of the alcohol they consume is during bouts...

PITTSBURGH - Joan Houk has ministered to the sick and needy, run two Roman Catholic parishes that were without priests and has presided over baptisms and funerals. Her calling now, she says, is to be a priest. Houk will be one of a dozen women participating in a ceremony Monday in which eight will proclaim themselves priests and four deacons. The ceremony won't be recognized by the Catholic church, which has a 2,000-year tradition of an all-male priesthood.Similar ceremonies conducted by the group Roman Catholic Womenpriests have been held before in other countries, and most of the participants have been...

While the government hopes it can curb the falling birthrate by offering families more financial assistance, one expert says it's the lack of sex, not income, that lies at the root of the country's population problem. Kunio Kitamura, executive director of the Japan Family Planning Association Inc., an entity under the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare, said the real problem is the growing number of "sexless" couples. A survey conducted last year of 936 people, aged 16 to 49, conducted by JFPA and Jichi Medical University in Tochigi Prefecture shows that 31 percent were "sexless" -- which the Japan...

IT was her first raid of an Iraqi home, and Pvt. Safiya Boothe, 21, had no idea what to expect. Tucking herself behind a group of men from her Army unit, her soft features and wispy body hidden by full battle gear, she walked through the front door, trying to be as anonymous as possible. When no shots were fired, she exhaled. Inside, she saw a group of Iraqi women cowering in a corner. While her male colleagues searched for weapons and questioned the men there, her job as a female soldier was to put the women at ease and,...

DURBAN, 8 September (IRIN) - This weekend, thousands of Zulu maidens will make their way to Nongoma in northern KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) Province, to participate in 'Umhlanga', the annual reed dance ceremony celebrating virginity. The traditional gathering takes place in the wake of controversy surrounding the soon-to-be-outlawed testing of virgins: the Children's Bill was approved by parliament in July 2005 and, if passed by the National Council of Provinces, the legislation will impose an outright ban on the custom. Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini lashed out at the government, saying he was opposed to the ban, while traditionalists and other groups vowed...

Equality has a wonderful "ring" to it, but when politicians, whose political life hinges on reelection, begin to tell us what/who is equal and what/who is not, it portends disaster. One dictionary defines "Equal" as: . "of the same measure, quantity, amount, or number as another; . identical in mathematical value or logical denotation." The question is, "are men and women equal?" . The anatomical answer is, "no;" . The psychological answer is, "no;" . The common sense answer is, "no;" and . One writer even suggests that men are from Mars and women from Venus-hardly equal, although the "Venusian"...

The van ahead of me was weaving dangerously into heavy merging traffic. Keeping a safe distance behind, I finally managed to pull up to him to give him a piece of my mind. What I saw was a figure of a petrified Asian driver crouched low behind the wheel with a look of total terror. Glancing at the back seat occupants, I noticed three women who looked just as terrified as their driver. I quickly surmised that this driver was probably very new in town, and must have very little experience at the wheel. And how tragic it would have...

Girls are sneaky. It happens daily to teenagers, from the tough street girls to the trendy, well-to-do fashionistas. It isn't anything obvious or -- God forbid -- physical, nothing that would ruffle a perfect ponytail. Even teachers on the lookout for it may not know it has happened. It is just a word, or two. A look. A wink. And then they're gone. No marks, no bruises. Girls aren't like that. They don't fight. They aren't crude or loud. They are quiet ... and mean. We all know about bullies -- boys who intimidate their peers, throw a punch, bump...

If you watch a lot of cable television, you've probably seen the ads, especially late at night or early in the morning. The "Girls Gone Wild" videos promise to show you coeds behaving badly on the beach during Spring Break or getting down and dirty at Mardi Gras. The formula is simple: find a group of nubile young things drunk out of their heads and induce them to pull up their T-shirts or pull down their shorts and expose themselves to anyone willing to fork over $19.95 for the privilege. The most recent incarnation features gangster rapper Snoop Dogg hawking...

E-mail Author Send to a Friend <% printurl = Request.ServerVariables("URL")%> Print Version January 07, 2005, 7:50 a.m. The Army's Gender WarA new policy is unfair to both men and women soldiers. By Elaine Donnelly I recently heard from a female soldier who feels betrayed by the Army. Calm but justifiably angry, the soldier said she is being assigned to a forward-support company that will "collocate" with the Army's new, modular infantry/armor land combat battalions. This is a serious change in policy, unfair to men and women soldiers alike. Under current regulations, women cannot be forced to serve in smaller...

The erosion of the gender gap in this election starkly illustrates Alan Brinkley’s insights regarding how issues of class and values pose challenges for progressives and the Democratic Party. In the last two presidential elections, the Democratic candidate won among women fairly decisively, by 16 points (Bill Clinton) and 11 points (Al Gore), respectively. In contrast, John Kerry won women voters by a mere 3 points, 51 percent to 48 percent. Kerry’s trouble with women is clearly rooted in the decline of support among white, blue-collar women for Democratic candidates, a trend that reached its low point to date in...

Teenage girls in Britain are binge drinking more than boys, turning the tables on a traditionally male practice, a study has shown. More than a quarter of girls in the 15- to 16-year-old age group admitted to binge drinking. The report, which looked at 35 countries, found that Britain had "exceptionally high levels of heavy drinking and illicit drug use" in the teenagers studied. It also found that young Britons were high in the league table which measured how often they got drunk. The analysis of more than 100,000 teenagers surveyed last year showed that 29 per cent of British...

Have just finished reading the numerous replies -- some of them truly heart breaking -- of this evening's post "Lost an Old Friend Today. Politics and the Personal"; and I find that far and away most of these intense,friendship-breaking liberals mentioned in these posts are women. (Obviously, not all.) Add to this that in many news stories it seems to be chiefly women who protest this or that by climbing trees or running around with their blouses off; or that when it come to really off-the-wall legal ruling(s), college admin. decisions, local government declarations, etc. odds are pretty darn good...

Female soldiers eyed for combat; Army seeks end of 1994 ban...

Not having anything worthwhile to say for himself, John Kerry has his surrogates out starting nasty rumors about the Bush administration. Our liberal national media doesn't seem to mind when Kerry minions spout obvious mistruths. The large media news organizations never bother fact-checking and questioning Democrats about even the most blatant lies, so Democrats babble on with impunity. We, however, prefer to take notes and lie in wait until the actual candidate starts feeling confident the trial balloon sent up by minions is safe to follow. John Kerry, of course, is libel to say anything. So, it didn't take long...

Scouts Canada ceased to serve any useful purpose the day they became all-inclusive, all-sensitive, and all-tolerant. Big Canadian real estate is on the market. A rather sizable chunk of Lord Robert Baden-Powell's Empire is available for investors, homebuilders, fishing resort prospectors, or blacktop barons. Scouts Canada is pounding in "for sale" signs at the entrances of a number of Scout camps across the country, including at least twenty camps in Ontario. But don't worry. No Boy Scouts will mourn the loss of their summer camps, for the Boy Scouts of Canada no longer exist. Thinking they could become more inclusive,...

Code: ZE04072401 Date: 2004-07-24 90 Million Missing Females, and a $45 Trillion Gap The Fruits of Misguided Family Planning NEW YORK, JULY 24, 2004 (Zenit.org).- While the United Nations and family planning groups continue in their efforts to lower birthrates, several recent books have drawn attention to the severe economic and social problems linked to having too few children. One book, "Bare Branches: The Security Implications of Asia's Surplus Male Population," takes a look at the consequences of an overabundance of young adult males, called "bare branches" in Chinese. Valerie Hudson and Andrea den Boer observe that China and...

Pro-abortion group NARAL is using women serving in the military overseas to spread their abortion agenda. In a message to supporters last week, NARAL asked its members to "support our troops" by helping to "protect servicewomen's rights abroad." Appealing to people who believe having an abortion is their constitutional right, NARAL expressed concern that female members of the military are not being allowed to have abortions while they are serving on behalf of their country overseas. "The thousands of women serving abroad in our military are being denied their freedoms, even as they are fighting to defend ours," NARAL contended...

Not long ago, it was the year of the whistle-blowing women - with Sherron Watkins of Enron, Cynthia Cooper of WorldCom, and Coleen Rowley of the FBI being celebrated on the cover of Time magazine. It was tempting to speculate that if more women were in charge, they'd be an ethical force capable of transforming top management. But more recent criminal cases, against Martha Stewart and Enron's Lea Fastow, have tempered those hopes. Clearly businesswomen can cross ethical and legal lines right alongside the men. So where should corporate America turn in a post-Martha world? As more women move into...

The Defense Department's senior personnel official today assured Senate Armed Services Committee members that the military would get to the bottom of allegations that scores of female service members were sexually assaulted during overseas deployments. "Sexual assault is a crime," David S.C. Chu, the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, declared in his opening remarks to members of the SASC's personnel subcommittee. Chu said DoD policy prohibiting sexual assault "is clear in the law, it is clear in the regulations of the department, it is clear in the statements of the secretary of defense." He also responded to committee...